


An Unfortunate Callback

by Merkwerkee



Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [46]
Category: Masters of the Metaverse (Web Series)
Genre: didn't actually go through with it, mentions of child death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27645250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merkwerkee/pseuds/Merkwerkee
Summary: While searching for his missing granddaughter in yet another metaverse, Bruno jumps into a sergeant's head in the middle of a firefight. Things might have gone very differently without his timely intervention
Series: Being Bruno Hamilton [46]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1643020





	An Unfortunate Callback

Ex-Sergeant Alexei Petrov was a patient man.

He’d been a patient man when he was young, he was a patient man when he had served his planetary defense force, and he was a patient man now. Forty years he had served as his planet’s first line of defense, and he would have served forty more before retiring comfortably had high command not tested the limits of that patience. To be in the military was to follow orders, to subordinate your will to that of the chain of command and use your skills to the utmost to fulfill mission objectives that would, in the end, never be explained to you; Petrov had done that without qualm for forty years.

But he drew the line at killing children, even alien ones.

His unit had been tasked with discouraging alien settlement on the moon; Petrov had not questioned the orders, had simply done as was required of him until one day it was him, his squad, and a room full of terrified alien younglings. He had looked around once, considered his orders and his options, and put down his gun before walking out. The rest of his squad had followed him, and when the army branded them all traitors and deserters they had accepted the consequences. Now they fought a running battle with the shadowy element that rotted their government from the inside out with a motley crew of rebels, anarchists, dissenters, and idealists of all stripes and species.

Bruno Hamilton had landed in his mind right in the middle of a firefight. Rather than distract his avatar from the battle at hand, Bruno took a step back in their shared mindspace and observed. The guns were very different than he was used to - still the same principle, point one end at your enemy and a projectile comes out, but they were strangely integrated into the user’s body and apparently tracked pupil movement to aim and used muscle contraction to fire. Very odd, to Bruno’s sensibilities, but to his avatar they were as familiar as breathing.

Getting a view of their tactical position, Bruno was pleased to see that Pierce had managed to land them just outside the Hall of Archives that would hopefully contain records that would indicate whether or not the Nightmare being attached to this metaverse at one point in its history - and if so, when. It was a slim lead, one they didn’t have a lot of time to pursue, but Bruno had had a rare break and so had brought Thomas and Stone with him on the jump. If anyone could get the information quickly and store it safely, it would be one or the other of them. He couldn’t see them, from where his avatar was, but he’d expected that and trusted Pierce enough by this point to know that they’d be relatively nearby.

It was a little strange, actually; Bruno could see from his avatar’s vantage point that none of their elements were pushing up, even though a quick glance showed the defenders firing rate had dipped perceptibly in just the few minutes Bruno had actually been in this metaverse. Tactically, it would be wiser to start moving in, keep the pressure on the defenders and force them to consolidate behind their set perimeter. Instead, the attackers just kept blazing away, staying well back from the building in fixed positions; Bruno could feel a watchful anticipation curling through his avatar, but no memory-images surfaced to explain it. What were they waiting for?

The shrilling alarms changed to a pitch Bruno could feel in Petrov’s back teeth, and a rolling door he’d taken to be some kind of loading dock slammed open to reveal…Something. It looked like some kind of horrible mishmash between a cow an some heavy machinery, but he didn’t get a good look before his avatar was up an pushing forward. Out of the corner of their shared eye Bruno could see other elements pushing forward as well, but it looked like only Petrov was aiming for the now-bellowing monster. A piece of plan crystallized in Petrov’s mind; keep the guardian-protocol occupied. Apparently, the thing was immune to the type of bullets they used in this metaverse and the only way to keep it from shredding the whole unit was to engage it at close quarters and pray you didn’t die - Bruno could see Petrov’s memories of doing so twice before, but he crept a little closer to the fore of their shared mind anyway.

Petrov collided with the thing with an almighty crash right before it hit another member of his squad - Bruno could see the wispy form of Thomas hovering over the other’s head before the man rushed inside but it was enough to reassure him of achieving mission objectives. It allowed him to narrow his focus to the thing in front of him.

This one was a little different than the other two Petrov had faced; the organic parts were reinforced with some kind of cladding that neither pilot nor avatar recognized, and the cabling was armored. Those upgrades, combined with the shine of the metal on the augmented portions, was enough to mark it out as an upgrade - possibly in direct response to the last two Petrov had comprehensively wrecked. The AI didn’t seem to be any better, though; within a few moments it had settled into the same pattern that Petrov had identified in the previous two. Swipe, swipe, back up, ram - Petrov dodged them with a wary eye as Bruno watched carefully. He didn’t want to interrupt his avatar at such a crucial moment, when far too much relied on muscle memory that Bruno simply didn’t have. Petrov had faced these things before, and it was that experience that was required now.

At least, right up until the monster switch from a ram to a swipe mid-motion. There was an audible _crunch_ as steel-reinforced horns came up under Petrov’s guard and rammed him in the chest. Bones snapped like matchsticks, and Petrov was hurled a dozen feet away into the solid stone of the wall.

For a single, breathless moment all Bruno could remember was the pain of crushed organs, the burning of snake venom, and the desperate, yawning void of space where an avatar’s soul used to be.

In the next instant, he was in the forefront of their shared mind, shoving Petrov away and down. The man’s experience was no longer a benefit, and the less he had to feel of their shared ribcage pulling itself together the better. Bruno stood up and jumped to the side just in time to narrowly avoid being hit by a full-speed charge that _shook_ the entire wall when it connected. In a move that he’d seen his granddaughter do a half-dozen times or more, Bruno _vaulted_ onto the back of the metallic monstrosity. His ribs protested mightily, and he could feel blood wetting corners of his mouth as the movement jarred some of the broken pieces into piercing organs, but the important thing was that he now had a direct line to the main power cabling running along the spine of the beast.

No regular person in this metaverse could have made that jump; the thing was half again as tall a Bruno was in his own body and nearly twice the height of Petrov. No regular person could have gotten into the cabling, either; heavy plates, bolted into metallic augments and semi-organic cladding alike lined the cable as it snaked up from the saddlebag-esque battery mounts along the spine to the circuits that let the thing work.

But Bruno was a class 4 metapilot, and he was far from a regular person.

Reaching down, he hooked his fingers underneath the plate closest to the battery packs and _heaved_. The thing beneath him bellowed and bucked, trying as hard as it could to get him off - but it could never do the one move that could have worked, having been gyroscopically stabilized specifically to prevent; roll. Bruno gritted his teeth and held on as the shattered chunks of his ribs jarred once more, before heaving one more time. The plate popped off, and Bruno reached down to tear the cabling away from the power cell.

The thing gave one last horrible bellow before going stiff and silent, and Bruno could feel Petrov’s approval in the back of his mind.

_Mission accomplished._


End file.
